Technology < Partnership

Last year our organization made a major decision to use Chef for our configuration management. People often ask me why we chose Chef over Puppet, SaltStack, or Ansible. I tell them that we chose Chef over the others because they have a better sales organization.

Instead the essence of success with change initiatives is managing the organizational and cultural changes needed to make it to the other side. Chef is a great partner in helping us navigate our change through the various parties and into a model that rapidly delivers value for our business. I’ve been extremely impressed with their organization at all levels and don’t think I would be where I am without their help.

So don’t start with the tools. Start with the people, the culture, the process that will lead to safe, repeatable, high-velocity change. If you find a tool that will partner with you in that discovery, you probably have a world-class tool. If you start with the tool and ignore the other things, you might end up with a cool tool that no one wants or understands.